are the stars out tonight?

life and stuff

26.5.05

total bliss

is there anything nicer than finding out that it's going to be 82 (28) degrees tomorrow? yep - realising i've got the day off!

i'm making all sorts of provisional plans, which will doubtless go out the window when i decide that what i really need to do is spend all day in front of the tv/the computer. and moping that they won't be showing series four and five of gilmore girls in the foreseeable future. grrr.

look, i did actually write a post here originally, but it seems to have disappeared. i don't know where it's gone or anything, but i shall endeavour to reproduce it here now.

what it was mostly about was how happy i am that boring sienna miller will not be playing the truly fabulous edie sedgwick, with whom i am obsessed. instead, katie holmes will be taking the role, and i think she'll do a much better job. though my choice would have been kirsten dunst... it usually is...

i'm currently knitting myself an edie sedgwick handbag. i'm so rock n roll, it's almost painful.... well actually, my middle finger on my right hand has gone kind of numb (like when you play the guitar too much), but it doesn't actually hurt....

just for the record i am totally fed up with this weather. the constant drip of rain and having to mop up kids' muddy footprints at work. frankly, it brings me down; so i'm trying to fix my thoughts on how i'd like the weather to be.

i would like this summer to be one of those ridiculously hot ones, a summer of hosepipe bans and droughts and people collapsing on the tube. i want a summer so uncomfortably hot that you can't sleep unless you're next to an open window and you have a wet flannel pressed to your forehead. when the weather's so fine that all you actually want to do is to go to a park and lie in the sunshine (even though if you do, you'll be lobster-pink within minutes). i want to sport some unsuitable footwear, and maybe even a skirt or two. i definitely don't want to have to carry an umbrella the whole time.

Or, why i would make a dreadful juror.i've been summonsed for jury service. weirdly enough i'd been meaning to post for a while about why i would make a really bad juror, so here is the perfect opportunity to explain it. see diagram 1 below (click it to make it bigger):

this (ironically enough) is a page from my notes taken in the law class i took at college last year. it reads:"innocent[sqiggle squiggle] proven guilty.jury trial, majority verdict or hung trialcase proven beyond reasonable doubtcrown prosecution sercive not police [squiggle]there to [sqiggle squiggle]magistrates - [squiggle]icitersH[squiggle] court - ba[squiggle]tersjustice must [sqiggle squiggle] being [sqiggle squiggle]dis[squiggle]ed not [squiggle]contempt of [squiggle]."

what was going on there, i hear you ask. my handwriting really isn't that bad. i promise.

i was falling asleep at the end of sentences. and also in the middle of sentences. i was bored.

those of you who know me and have seen me in lectures, and indeed lessons, and once in the gallery at the old bailey, will know that i fall asleep really, really easily,

so whatever case i get, it had better be something quick and brutal. i'm not sure there's enough pro plus in the world to keep me awake during something jarndycian.

via the mysteron, a literary meme, which i'm using to kick start my new month's resolution of posting more often, as well as to remind you of the imminent relaunch of the fifty two book challenge.... coming soon to a blog near you...

incidentally, to avoid confusion, i'm answering all the questions that appeared variously in this meme all at once, amazingly enough!

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?oh yes. several. this obviously makes me a bit of a sad-case, but in my defence... no i don't really have a defence, except maybe to say that i was young and hormonal at the time (luckily i've avoided literary crushes in recent years)... let me see..., not rochester or darcy at least... there was definitely simon in lord of the flies, which may be a little obscure (and may have also had more to do with seeing it performed by a load of boys about my age in stratford one summer, than actually reading the book)... that's the only one that's coming to me at the moment. perhaps more will occur to me later.

The last book you bought is?high rise by jg ballard, for the book group (incidentally, if any of you london based lot want to join, our next meeting's tuesday 10th, email me for details) i promptly poured coke all over it, so it has that attractive sticky vintage look to it... mmmm.

The last book you finished iser, it was harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban. a re-read. because i love potter. dammit. as long as i also read grown-up books for grown-up people, i'm allowed to love potter. also, i'm allowed to reasonably like harry and the potters, because i listen to proper grown-up music like anthony and the johnsons (d'you see what i did there).

What are you currently reading?if you assumed that i was too lazy to update the currently reading section on the left hand side of the screen, which has read strange and norrell for about two months, you would be wrong. i have really been reading it that long. i'm currently about half-way through it. i have but one response so far: "this woman needs a fucking editor." i can't even tell if it's any good, because it's so fucking long. ahem.

You're inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book would you burn?erm... it would probably be 'far from the maddening crowd', which i was supposed to read for gcse english, and which is number one on the 'books that were too awful to read' list i keep. number two is ralph's party by lisa jewell, chicklit of the lowest order, which tom paulin inexplicably loved. just another reason i'm glad i didn't go to oxford.

Which book would you memorise if you were on a desert island?i'm not convinced this would be a particularly fruitful exercise, but i suppose it would pass the time. so what i would memorise would be the complete works of shakespeare. then i could act it out on my island. with only the goat to see my world-beating performance of king lear. really.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (three people) and why?this is the bit i don't like about memes, because it feels a bit presumptuous to tell people what to write about on their own blogs. but i'll risk it anyway, and so the baton goes to:archel, because she pretty well eats, sleeps and breathes books. that may not be true actually... but she reads a lot of books... and also works in a library.laura, whose new look is extremely fab. for much the same reason. except replace library with librarie (that's bookshop in french... i hope).

...oh heck, i've managed to only find two people i think might be interested... if you want to take the stick, leave a comment...

Weathering

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